The great testimony she thus bore
is attested by the sworn and compelled
witness of her death, by the Dominican who mounted the pile with her,
whom she forced to descend, but who
spoke to her from its foot, listened to
her, and held out to her the crucifix.

There is yet another witness of this
sainted death, a most grave witness,
who must himself have been a saint.
This witness, whose name history
ought to preserve, was the Augustine
monk already mentioned, brother Isambart de la Pierre. During the trial,
he had hazarded his life by counselling
the Pucelle; and yet, though so clearly
pointed out to the hate of the English,
he persisted in accompanying her in
the cart, procured the parish crucifix
for her, and comforted her in the
midst of the raging multitude, both
on the scaffold where she was interrogated, and at the stake.

Twenty years afterwards, the two
venerable friars, simple monks, vowed
to poverty, and having nothing to
hope or fear in this world, bear wit
ness to the scene we have just de
scribed : " We heard her," they say,
" in the midst of the flames invoke her
saints, her archangel; several times
she called on her Saviour. ... At the
last, as her head sunk on her bosom,
she shrieked; ' Jesus' "

" Ten thousand men wept. ..." A
few of the English alone laughed, or
endeavored to laugh. One of the
most furious among them had sworn
that he would throw a fagot on the
pile. Just as he brought it, she
breathed her last. He was taken ill.
His comrades led him to a tavern to
recruit his spirits by drink, but he
was beyond recovery. "I saw," he
exclaimed, in his frantic despair, "I
saw a dove fly out of her mouth with
her last sigh." Others had read in the
flames the word "Jesus," which she so
often repeated. The executioner re
paired in the evening to brother Isam
bart, full of consternation, and confesed himself; but felt persuaded that
God would never pardon him. . . .
One of the English king's secretaries
said aloud, on returning from the dis
mal scene, " We are lost ; we have
burnt a saint"

Though these words fell from an
enemy's mouth, they are not the less
important, and will live, uncontradicted by the future. Yes, whether
considered religiously or patriotically,
Jeanne Dare was a saint.
Where find a finer legend than this
true history ? Still, let us beware of
converting it into a legend; let us
piously preserve its every trait, even
such as are most akin to human na
ture, and respect its terrible and
touching reality, . .

Let the spirit of romance profane it
by its touch, if it dare ; poetry will
ever abstain. For what could it add ?
. . . The idea which, throughout the
middle age, it had pursued from
legend to legend, was found at the
last to be a living being - the dream
was a reality. The Virgin, succorer
in battle, invoked by knights, and
looked for from above, was here
below. . , . and in whom? Here is
the marvel. In what was despised, in
what was lowliest of all, in a child, in
a simple country girl, one of the poor,
of the people of Prance. . . . For
there was a people, there was a
Prance. This last impersonation of
the past was also the first of the
period that was commencing. In her
there at once appeared the Virgin.
. . . and, already, country.

Such is the poetry of this grand
fact, such its philosophy, its lofty
truth. But the historic reality is not
the less certain ; it was but too posi
tive, and too cruelly verified. . . .
This living enigma, this mysterious
creature, whom all concluded to be
supernatural, this angel or demon,
who, according to some, was to fly
away some morning, was found to be
a woman, a young girl ; was found to
be without wings, and linked as we
ourselves to a mortal body, was to
suffer, to die - and how frightful a
death 1
But it is precisely in this apparently degrading reality, in this sad
trial of nature, that the ideal is dis
coverable, and shines brightly. Her
contemporaries recognized in the
scene Christ among the Pharisees.
. . . Still we must see in it something
else the Passion of the Virgin, the
martyrdom of purity.

There have been many martyrs ;
history shows us numberless ones,
more or less pure, more or less glo
rious. Pride has had its martyrs ; so
have hate, and the spirit of contro
versy. No age has been without mar
tyrs militant, who no doubt died with
a good grace when they could no
longer kill. ... Such fanatics are
irrelevant to our subject. The sainted
girl is not of them ; she had a sign of
her own goodness, charity, sweet
ness of soul.
She had the sweetness of the an
cient martyrs, but with a difference.
The first Christians remained gentle
and pure only by shunning action, by
sparing themselves the struggles and
the trials of the world. Jehanne was
gentle in the roughest struggle, good
amongst the bad, pacific in war itself;
she bore into war (that triumph of the
deviPs) the spirit of God.

She took up arms, when she knew
" the pity for the kingdom of France."
She could not bear to see "French
blood flow." This tenderness of heart
she showed towards all men. After a
victory she would weep, and would
attend to the wounded English.

Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness
that this supreme beauty of the
soul should have centred in a daughter
of France, may suprise foreigners who
choose to judge of our nation by the
levity of its manners alone. We may
tell them (and without partiality, as
we speak of circumstances so long
since past) that under this levity, and
in the midst of its follies and its very
vices, old France was not styled with
out reason, the most Christian people.
They were certainly the people of
love and of grace ; and whether we
understand this humanly or Ghris
tianly, in either sense it will ever hold
good.

The deliverer of France could be no
other than a woman. France herself
was woman ; having her nobility, but
her amiable sweetness likewise, her
prompt and charming pity; at the
least, possessing the virtue of quickly
excited sympathies. And though she
might take pleasure in vain elegances
and external refinements, she remained
at bottom closer to nature. The
Frenchman, even when vicious, pre
served, beyond the man of every
other nation, good sense and good
ness of heart. . .

May new France never forget the
saying of old France : " Great hearts
alone understand how much glory
there is in being good" To be and
to keep so, amidst the injuries of man
and the severity of Providence, is
not the gift of a happy nature alone,
but it is strength and heroism. . . .
To preserve sweetness and benevolence in the midst of so many bitter
disputes, to pass through a life's ex
periences without suffering them to
touch this internal treasure is di
vine. They who persevere, and so
go on to the end, are the true elect.
And though they may even at times
have stumbled in the difficult path of
the world, amidst their falls, their
weaknesses, and their infancies, they
will not the less remain children of
God.